My 2nd Princess

I was at the market as usual when I felt strong contractions. I knew that I will be in labour pretty soon but was not too sure as the contractions did not increase in frequency and intensity. Nevertheless, I just warned my hubby about it and continued to do my usual chores. It was until I noticed blood back at home then was I sure that my 2nd Princess was coming!

Just like my previous labour, I showered and called my hubby to send us to the hospital. Upon arrival, the nurses treated me like it will take a long time for my baby to arrive, so they slowly prepared me and called my gynae. I was not dilated at all, so my gynae went on to do a C-section for his other patient before attending to me. By the time he came (1hr later), I was ready to deliver.

Thank God for epidural! I was able to laugh my baby out with 5 strong pushes...but somehow my Princess has not been laughing since.... Guess I still need time to understand her demands. :) My 1st Princess was also such a lovely gal and has been very protective over her little sis ever since. :)

Starting 2010 right?

How else to start the year right by showing some bad gal attitude like digging my nose glamourously in a material gal Madonna way, making Amy Winehouse look amteurishly stupid.

Well, i guess that is the price to pay for being the ultimate bad gal. Now mummy has placed me in a school to learn how to behave like a LADY!

I am all decked up and ready to go...
Mmm... I suppose doggy can also help me to collect more ang bao... That's seems like a good plan, at least he can help me to look cute and sweet... more brownie points... And I got my 'piggy' bag to collect all my spoils... hehehe...

End of 2009

Hey mummy, aren't u too heavy for the seal?

Hawaii!

Don't Anais look like a Hong Kong Superstar?

2009 had been a wonderful year. With lots of fun with Anais and outings as a family. For the past 1yr, we managed to treat ourselves to Inagiku twice. This achievement was only possible when our dear gal manage to gain 2kgs for the past year. This is a very precious treat that we look forward to every year.

The tree was inspired by my dress!

Her smile is so bright that she makes the tree looks dull... actually the lights were not switched on... haha!

Is it aunty Eva's birthday or Anais?


We are going to the zoo, zoo, zoo what about u, u, u?

Durian party with Grandma, mummy and aunty Eva

Can't help trying to woo my daughter to join my durain party club. It is ok... I will try again in 2010!

Hand, Foot & Mouth Dz

Ok, my gal was down with HFMD... so am I. With so much time on my hand, I decided to cook. 1st, I got some coconut milk to use up before it spoils and too much pandan in my garden, so I baked my chocolate chip pandan cake. In addition, the strawberries and blueberries I got for my daughter is spoiling, so I baked a strawberry + blueberry shortcake.

Anyway, after my gal tried a small mouth of my pandan cake and shook her head to tell me that it is not nice and refuses to take anymore... sigh! I wonder when will she ever take my food and ask for more... Initially I blame it on the ulcers in her mouth but it's been week! Oh well, guess I need more practice!

My Baby is now a Toddler!

Tsk tsk tsk! It has been such a long time since I updated my blog. So much has happened and I do not think that I can write everything here!

Since I started work in June, time just flies past in a blinking of an eye. Anais has put on some weight finally as she no longer throws up. Despite taking slightly more solids, her milk intake has cut down drastically. She does not like to drink milk and i takes her forever to finish like a 100ml each time. Now the only way to make sure that she is taking enough nutrients, we put in a lot of stuff in her porridge. Tofu and yoghurt is her next best replacement for milk. To complicate things, Anais do not like sweet tasting food, so feeding her cereal in the morning is a torture.

Currently, I am making carrot cakes to fry with eggs for her breakfast and I will be attempting to make quiche next week. After which, I will need to think very hard for the next recipe to try... until her molars grow out to chew the tougher food.

Other than her eating adventure, we have also enrolled her to Shichida Method. It is a way of learning that encourages the stimulation of the right brain so that they can have faster and higher memory and think more creatively. Moreover, they also believe in extrasensory perception (ESP) which allows children to predict and guess an unknown. Sounds pretty spooky! Nevertheless, I've attended a few sessions with her and have the following conclusion.

- Flashing of any flash cards fast enough will capture the attention of a child and such practice may help to improve the photographic memory. It is only a hypothesis that needs to be confirmed through more literature review.

- ESP has always been coined as pseudo science but my observation is that the activity may not be training ESP per se but teaching the child to read very fine body language and understand the little body signs from an individual to predict the correct answer. Such skills may develop the EQ of a child as they become sensitive and aware of the people they interact with.

- As long as the learning environment is fun and the child feels loved, she will always enjoy learning.

Thus far, Anais has been enjoying herself in class and I have been learning form the class the different games to play with her and the activities that we can do at home to stimulate her senses. The Shichida Method is a fun class to attend and it helps the child to bond very well with her parent. However, the 'Parent Education Course' hosted by Khoo is a waste of time in my opinion as she have no scientific evidence about 80% of the things she says. The miracle stories shared by her is one in a million with so many students that she has, the probability is pretty high. End of the day, do not harbor too high an expectation for your child. Just have fun and enjoy growing up with them!

Korea Trip

What a cold period to go to Korea than during its winter? Being a kiasu mum, I packed so much winter cloths for Anais only to realize that she is not afraid of the cold and instead prefers not to wear much when we are out in the cold. This has invited several criticism from the local Koreans who strongly believes in keeping the body very warm, especially a child. This is evident in their high Ginseng content diet and long sleeves fashion. It is a challenge to find anything sleeveless during my shopping there. Even their dresses for children are all in long sleeves!

It was a challenge to get her suit up and I even ended up catching her skin on her chin while zipping up. Boy, that was really painful! 

Look how happy she was! It was really cold and she just snuggle up and sleep most of the time. We also find that she drinks much faster and more in the cold!

It was a slight challenge to bring her with us as we wanted to see more snow which will require us to go up a mountain for a few days. We skipped that and went to trek another mountain, Doobongsan. It was really beautiful and serene up there but we did not climb all the way up as carrying a baby with all the heavy clothing is quite tiring for me as I have not exercised for about a year.

Food in Korea is typically korean BBQ, or steamboat. The best I remembered was the poached egg in miso served by Shila Hotel. The taste was so smooth and miso just enhances the taste and fragrance of the egg. I never knew a plain egg could taste so good!

And of course, the most important thing is that our little rascal had fun!

2009!

2009 has been a good year thus far. Baby Anais got a dog from Uncle Collin and Aunty Michelle and she is having lots of fun with it. Maybe this is why she has no fear for big dogs... cannot say the same for my neighbour's golden retreiver as she is terrified of my baby!

Daddy got her a Care Bear to match her new dress and hairband!

Now everybody knows where she got her naughty genes from... :)


Look at Anais's Godma! Ain't she pretty? Now who dares to bully her when she's got a Feary, I mean Fairy Godma!

The naked truth

So, what sort of mother am I? Putting up all these naked pictures of my little gal? Well, I realized that by not dressing her up, I have much lesser cloths to wash since she got nothing to puke on.

Isn't she cute? Somehow she does not look skinny in pictures.

Her 1st potty training! Look how hard she tries! She is so skinny that her butt is dropping into the potty.

Father- daughter bonding!

Maiden flight!

This was my darling's first flight from Singapore to Bangkok! Look how excited she was. We  were very relieved that she did not cry on the plane on taking off and to our surprise, she was swallowing to equalize her ears! Though we know that feeding and pacifier will help, our baby simply hate to have anything in her mouth. :)

After all the excitement, she finally settled down with daddy to have a nap... so sweet.

Yippee! Our princess is having fun in OUR bed even though she has a beautiful cot for herself. This is a very beautiful villa at Evason Hideaway, Hua Hin. It oversees the Gulf of Siam with cows roaming the pasture just outside the villa.

This is the private pool that comes with the villa. Very nice but was too cold to swim in... hehe. I tried dipping our princess in and she came out shivering... ;p

Food in Hua Hin is of course, seafood! Fresh from the sea everyday! The most recommended seafood restaurant was 'The Hua Hin Terrace'. It is filled with tourist and has an interesting dish known as 'Fiery squids' literally as seen below. The sexiest drink we had was 'Virgin Pina Colada', yummy!

This is our sweetie pie playing goodie 2 shoes while we were having breakfast. that of course did not last for long. 

Since it was a holiday, it must feel like one, so we got a babysitter, Pung to take care of our princess for 2hrs while we booked ourselves a good massage from the 'Six Senses Spa'. We were initially disappointed that she did not seem to mind leaving us, laughing and playing happily with Pung. Upon returning, we realized that she was crying for 30mins before our return and like most babysitter would do, Pung tried feeding our princess which only brought on more fustration cause our baby hates FOOD! Nevetheless, all was well and we went for a good dinner with baby sleeping in my sarong.

All good things have to come to an end as we stayed in Bangkok for the next 2days before heading back to Singapore. I was quite delighted that I still managed to do some shopping with the baby in tow. :)

After so much fun and excitement, our Princess was reluctant to leave and refused to sleep on the plane even though she was really tired.